April mergers came in smaller, but scene remained active.

After a blockbuster March, mergers and acquisitions for companies in Los Angeles County shrank considerably in April, with announced deals totaling $5.9 billion, down from $12.2 billion in March.

But the number of transactions held steady, with 65 announced deals, compared to 67 in the prior month--a sign the robust M&A market was holding up, according to data compiled for the Business Journal by Goldsmith Agio Helms, a Minneapolis-based private investment bank.

"Everybody wants to look at the dollar values, because we're so dollar-enamored," said Scott Adelson, senior managing director at investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & ZukJn. "But you can only tell the health of a market by the number of transactions."

The report includes county-based businesses that announced deals in April.

The biggest deal was in health care, with Siemens Medical Solutions USA, a division of Germany-based Siemens AG, acquiring L.A.'s Diagnostic Products Corp. for $1.9 billion. The local company has a strong lineup of blood tests and other diagnostic products.

Health care has been an active deal sector for the past year, accounting for five of the 65 L.A.-area deals last month. Energy also was booming with nearly $2 billion in deals.

Calgary-based Focus Energy Trust acquired Profico Energy Management, a Saskatchewan-based natural gas prospector, from L.A.-based Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors for $1.4 billion. And Dallas-based Aion USA Energy Inc. acquired Paramount-based crude oil refinery Paramount Petroleum Corp. for $407 million.

High oil prices triggered a number of energy-related transactions, according to Robert Burns Jr., managing director at Goldsmith Agio Helms. The steady number of deals in April was a good sign, he said, considering more companies close deals at year end.

"There's a natural depression of transactions in midyear," Burns said.

In addition, the deal volume is expected to continue at the same pace given a backlog of transactions that have yet to be announced.

On the tech side, there were 11 announced deals, several from high-profile venture capital funds.

Palo Alto-based Mobius Venture Capital and Globespan Capital Partners sold wireless technology company Sendia Corp.. of Santa Monica for $15 million to San Francisco-based Salesforee.com Inc. And Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity sold automatic ID and data capture firm Telpar Distribution Business to Fremont-bases Synnex Corp. for $5 million.

The wireless and mobile content area has been particularly hot for the past year. In April, Xero Mobil Inc., of Beverly Hills, was acquired by L.A.'s Desi TV Inc. for an undisclosed amount. The rest of the tech deals also were undisclosed, usually a signal of smaller dollar amounts involving private companies.

"We in Los Angeles are a middle-market economy," Adelson said. "Middle market companies are often owned by entrepreneurs who are typically not jumping up and down to tell everyone how much they sold for."

Media deals

Another busy sector: media and entertainment. NBC Universal, a division of General Electric Co., sold four television stations to Media General for about $600 million. And North Hollywood-based adult entertainment company Jill Kelly Productions, owned by the adult film star of the same name, sold its film library to New York-based Penthouse Media Group for nearly $2 million.

Industry newsletters saw interest too. Chatsworth-based 1105 Media Inc., a portfolio company of publishing veteran Neale Vitale, spent $75 million to acquire 101 Communications, purveyor of computer, technology and defense industry newsletters, and Stevens Publishing, which publishes newsletters and trade magazines.

Still, getting a complete picture of M&A activity is always a challenge because the dollar values of so many deals are kept under wraps. In April, 36 out of 65 L.A.-area transactions did not disclose financial terms--not unusual in this market.

Investors and acquired companies have reasons for keeping such transactions private. They sometimes want to keep secret how much of the company was sold, or they may want to shield the possible impact on other investors. There are also competitive reasons.

"Investors may not want people to know how much they paid, especially when they turn around and sell it three to five years from now," Burns said.

The values of the four real estate deals of the month were also kept private. The 386room Radisson Los Angeles Westside was sold to the Washington D.C. based Carlyle Group LLC for an undisclosed amount. But with hotel properties selling for an estimated $220,000 per room on the West Side, the deal likely closed for around $85 million.

The trend of private equity firms taking public companies private was evident in April.

Hollywood mainstay Panavision Inc., makers of high-end film and camera equipment, was acquired by Ron Perelman's MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings investment company. Perelman already held 96 percent of company's outstanding shares. He bought the remainder last month for $11.7 million.

The company operated under a series of revolving lines of credit, and management had been mulling over going private for some time.

M&A Update

Announced mergers and acquisitions in L.A. County.

Month         Number of Deals     Deal Value

August '05          75          $4.7 billion
September           77           2.4 billion
October             72           6.5 billion
November            66           9.2 billion
December            73          19.6 billion
January '06         60          16.0 billion
February            64           4.0 billion
March               67          12.2 billion
April               65           5.9 billion

Source: Goldsmith Agio Helms